Florence Foster Jenkins

Although the concept of camp is assumed by most to be mainly a 20th-century idea, the strange case of Florence Foster Jenkins proves that among the elite of New York in the first half of the century, bad taste could draw large crowds when properly wielded.

Born into luxury in 1868 to a wealthy PennsylvaniaBanking family, Florence Foster immediately took a liking to music, and gave her first recital at the age of eight on piano. When she was 17, she announced to her father that she intended to become a singer. Pater Foster was against the idea for two reasons: He believed that a woman's place is in the home, and he also knew that his daughter had an awfulsinging voice. He declined to fund her education. Undaunted, Florence eloped with Frank Thornton Jenkins, a young doctor, to Philadelphia, where she began her singing career. It was an unhappy marriage, however, and the pair were divorced in 1902. Madame Jenkins turned to a career teaching piano and singing until 1909, when the death of her father left her with a sizeable inheritance. It was at this point that she had enough to launch her own singing career.

In 1944, at the age of 76, Jenkins fulfilled a lifelong fantasy, and played at Carnegie Hall. She did this by renting the hall out for herself. At this point in her career, Jenkins was so popular, or maybe just amusing, that she sold out the house, and two thousand fans were reported turned away at the door. She died a month and a day later. Obituaries for her praised her enthusiasm, if not her talent.

I thought I wouldn't be able to find any recordings of Jenkins on the web, but if you email FloJenkinsRequest@brumm.com, you can get a 450k realAudio file of the diva herself. Most of the information came from www.megasaver.com/page2/ffj.html